The tract over which Russia had gained mastery was a parallelogram lying between the Oxus and the Harī Rūd, which washes the walls of Herāt, and in Turkomania is known as the Tajand. The western boundary marched with that of Persia, and at its northern extremity was defined by Old Sarakhs, a Turkoman village perched on an elevation which commanded a once thickly peopled country extending northwards to Merv. Old Sarakhs was easily accessible by wheeled traffic from Puli Khatan, a village on the left bank of the Harī Rūd, thirty-three miles from the Zū-l-Fikār Pass, through which the Tekke hordes had often poured into Khorāsān. To the east of this defile lay the Paropamisus range, a double spur of the Kūh-i-Bābā Mountains, which consists of low rolling hills covered with asafœtida and thistles.[633] The northern flank of the Paropamisus gives rise to the Murghāb, which fertilises Merv, and its confluent the river Kushk. The country between these streams and the Harī Rūd was known as the Bādghīs,[634] and is described by Lessar as presenting the appearance of a stormy sea suddenly reduced to solidity. In 1884 it had been ruined by Tekke incursions. A few thousand Jamshīdīs still clung to the rich valley of the Kushk, where they had been planted by Nādir Shāh in the eighteenth century as a bulwark against Turkoman aggression, and are described as a peaceable nomad race famed for their breed of horses.[635] On the north-west of this forlorn tract stood Bālā Murghāb, an Afghan fortress commanding the road to Maymena; and thirty-five miles farther north the village of Panjdih towered above an oasis with an area of 170 square miles, peopled by the Sārik Turkomans. Afghanistan lay to the south of the debatable land. Its natural boundary was defined by the Paropamisus, and only eighty miles beyond them lay Herāt. This city had played a great part in history. It was regarded as the key to Afghanistān; the only serious obstacle to a successful invasion of India from the north-west; and its citadel had been fortified in 1838 under the supervision of British officers. Nor was the importance of Herāt confined to its strategic position. It was the emporium of Central Asian trade, and the centre of a well-watered and fertile country. Thus the value to Russia of her latest acquisition was immense. In Merv she possessed a region which had been once the most fertile on the world’s surface, and needed but settled government to resume its ancient importance. The ill-defined area which she claimed to the south of the Merv oasis commanded the richest province of Persia and the north of Afghanistān. It was inevitable that the news of its impending appropriation should excite a storm of indignation in England, where every step of the Russian advance was watched with the keenest suspicion. An attempt to propitiate public feeling had been made as far back as 1882, when Russia proposed a joint commission to demarcate the northern boundary of Afghanistān, and at that time she would doubtless have accepted a line drawn from Khwāja Sālih on the Oxus to Sarakhs. But the Government then in power was not inclined to raise so delicate a question, and it was not until June 1884, when the situation had been radically modified by the conquest of Turkomania, that the proposal found acceptance. A joint commission was appointed in July, charged with the duty of laying down the disputed boundary. It was headed on the British side by General Sir Peter Lumsden, who had won distinction in India; while General Zelenoi was directed to watch over the interests of Russia. Sir Peter traversed Afghanistān, with the Amīr `Abd er-Rahmān’s permission, escorted by a little army of 500 strong with twice as many camp followers. This demonstration, for such it was, excited the suspicion of Lieutenant-General Komaroff,[636] the military governor of Transcaspia, and General Zelenoi was directed to return to Tiflis. In the meantime the explorations of Lessar in the valleys of the Murghāb and Kushk had led Russia to modify her claims. It was contended at the conference which followed that she should be allotted an ethnological frontier, based on the submission rendered by the Sāriks inhabiting the Panjdih oasis. The British representative, on the other hand, declined to recognise any other boundary than one based on natural conditions which excluded from Russian sway all territory south of an imaginary line drawn from Old Sarakhs to Khwāja Sālih on the Oxus. The Gordian knot was cut by the Afghans, who, encouraged by the presence on the Murghāb of the small British force attending Sir Peter Lumsden, moved northwards and occupied Bālā Murghāb and the disputed oasis of Panjdih.